


Seattle to Baltimore and Back

by kultiras



Category: Sleepless In Seattle (1993)
Genre: Coming of Age, Epistolary, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28148019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kultiras/pseuds/kultiras
Summary: When Jonah and his dad moved to Seattle and met Jessica's family, they never knew how important that relationship would be for the rest of their lives.
Relationships: Jessica (Sleepless In Seattle)/Jonah Baldwin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Seattle to Baltimore and Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anotherthief](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherthief/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, anotherthief! I had a lot of fun writing this, and if I'm completely honest, I offered Sleepless in Seattle as a fandom I could write in with the hopes for a prompt like the one you gave me. So getting to write for you was an absolute joy! I'm sorry I couldn't quite get to the wedding and their life together as a married couple, but I really hope you like this story. ♥ 
> 
> So very many thanks to msraven for the beta. Any mistakes are my own since I kept adding to this afterwards.

It was a couple of hours after they had left the Empire State Building with his backpack and with Annie, and Jonah and his dad were in the hotel room that his dad got them. Jonah was sprawled on the bed, half-listening as his dad filled Jessica's parents in on what had happened. So far, he knew that they had been really worried about him after Jessica had told them the plan, and he also knew that she was now grounded. The adults were still talking about how he and his dad would get home to Seattle, but Jonah was just hoping he could talk to Jessica even if she was grounded. 

As he heard the conversation coming to an end, Jonah rolled across the bed to his dad. “Please?” he whispered, “Can I just let her know? Jessica deserves to know.”

His dad reached out to pull Jonah into a half hug. “Thank you both so much for your help. Can I ask you for one more favor? Can you put Jessica on?” His dad nodded at Jessica's Mom's response. “I know she’s grounded, but if it’s alright with you, Jonah just wants to let her know that he really is safe, that everything worked out okay.” He smiled down at Jonah as she replied and said, “Thank you so much, I’ll just give Jonah the phone for a few minutes.”

His dad moved aside so that Jonah could pick up the phone. “Jessica’s grounded, so she can’t talk for very long, plus I have no idea how much this long distance call is going to add to our hotel bill, so please keep it short, okay, kiddo?”

“Okay, dad,” Jonah replied. “Jessica?” He asked, as he picked up the phone.

“Jonah? Are you okay? Did you get to the Empire State Building in time? Was she there? Did you meet Annie?” Jessica asked quickly, knowing she could return to being grounded at any moment.

“I’m fine, Jessica. Nothing bad happened on my trip, and I went straight to the Empire State Building as soon as I left the airport.” Jonah glanced over at his dad as he heard him mutter something, but his dad waved him back towards the phone and just sat down on the hotel room bed and rested his head in his hands for a moment.

“I waited all day, but I never saw Annie. And it was starting to get cold, and people were starting to leave and I didn’t know what to do, but that’s when Dad got there! And we went in the elevator all the way down to the ground floor, and were going to leave the Empire State Building, but I forgot my backpack there.” Jonah paused to take a breath and went back to hurriedly telling Jessica his tale.

“So we turned around before we even made it to the door, and the guard was really nice and understood about my backpack and bear. So he took us back up to the obversion—I mean observation—level. And there was someone else holding my backpack!”

“Really? Someone was trying to steal your backpack?” Jessica cried out, “How could someone think that’s okay? It clearly belongs to a kid!”

“No, no, she wasn’t trying to steal it. She found my backpack where I had left it, and she opened it to look for a name inside.”

“Wait, she? Some lady found it?”

“Yes!” Jonah replied exasperatedly, “Now let me finish! When we got back to the observation floor, we saw a lady holding onto my backpack. Dad recognized her, and she smiled and gave me back my bear and gave dad my backpack. I asked her if she was Annie, and she was!”

“You met Annie?!?” Jessica shouted excitedly.

Jonah couldn’t keep the huge smile off his face in response. “We met Annie!”

“What is she like? Is she as nice as she seemed in her letter?”

“Honestly, she’s even nicer, Jessica. We had dinner with her and she’s amazing. And she really does love baseball!”

“That’s so great, Jonah,” Jessica said, pausing as Jonah heard her mom speak up in the background. “I have to go, I’m grounded for buying you the plane ticket.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry too. I’m probably going to be grounded too when I get home,” Jonah said.

“Oh you’re definitely grounded once we get back home,” his dad said.

“I’m glad you’re okay Jonah, and I’m glad Annie was amazing. S.Y.S?”

“S.Y.S,” Jonah replied and handed the phone back to his dad so he could say goodbye to Jessica’s mom.

“S.Y.S?” His dad asked, hanging up the phone.

“See you soon.”

“Of course that’s what it means. Would it kill you two to use actual words?"

"No, but this is more fun."

————

Jessica finished labeling the packed box of video games, before moving on to the next box of Jonah's things. "I can't believe you guys are moving to Baltimore. I know you, your dad and Annie have been traveling back and forth between here and Baltimore for a couple of years now, but it's hard to imagine you not being right next door anymore."

"Yeah, it's weird to know that we're all actually going to be living together in Baltimore after all these years," Jonah agreed, taping up another box. "I am not going to miss all of the flights back and forth though. Plus it'll be nice actually getting to spend more time with Annie without mentally counting down to someone's flight home." Jonah started filling the box with clothes from his closet. "I will miss it here though, Seattle was good for us." Jonah paused and looked over at Jessica, "I'll miss you too, you know."

"You'd better."

"I'm serious! You're the best friend I've ever had, and if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have even met Annie."

"Well that's true."

"Not living next door to you anymore is going to be the worst part of moving to Baltimore."

Jessica smiled sadly at him, "Yeah, I'm going to miss you too."

————

_Message inside a Christmas Card in 1998_

Merry Christmas Jonah! Hope you're enjoying your vacation and the cold weather! (Makes you miss Seattle's rain, doesn't it?) Are you online yet? Mom and Dad finally let me get an email address of my own. (Yes, they still plan on keeping tabs on it, because for some reason they don't entirely trust me to be online alone, but it's still my email address.) So send me an email at the address below so we can write back faster! And if you don't have an email address yet, hurry up and get one!

Anyway, one way or another, W.B.S. 

— Jessica

————

_Email from jonahb83@aol.com to acissej@aol.com in 2000_

Subject: College?!?!!

Have you figured out what you're doing after graduation? Dad keeps asking me what I want to study, and what colleges I want to visit. I'm not really sure about any of it. I mean, I want to go to college, but, I don't know if I want to stick around here for a while or maybe go to Chicago since I haven't been back there since we left. Seattle's always an option, and the West Coast schools in general. I just don't know what I want to do. I'm pretty sure I can guess what you want to study…

JB

_Email from acissej@aol.com to jonahb83@aol.com_

Well yeah, anyone who has known me since age 8 knows that I'll do something with computers. But you know it's okay that you don't know what you want to study right? All those movies and shows tell us college is for finding yourself. Just go with pop culture on this one. Figure out where you'll be happiest living and going to school, and just take the required stuff until you figure out what you do like. I don't want to say that it's not a big deal, when college is important and all, but it's not that big a deal. You've got time to figure it out. But you should probably talk to your dad about it. Or talk to Annie, and she can talk to your dad. You know he worries about everything.

J

————

"Hey Kiddo, how are things?"

"Hey Dad. Everything's fine. Looking forward to coming home for winter break though, this semester has been a nightmare."

"Regretting changing your major already?"

"No, I'm pretty sure this was a much better fit for me. I think it was just this professor. He just wouldn't stop contradicting himself from one class to another. It makes it hard to actually learn anything, let alone pass a class."

"I bet. Anyway, I'm calling because it's official: Christmas dinner with Annie's entire extended family is on at her parents' house again this year. Everyone's coming, so it's going to be the typical chaos. I'm sure you haven't forgotten the last Christmas dinner that we all made it to!"

"I couldn't forget it even if I wanted to, Dad. But yeah, about Christmas…" Jonah trailed off as Jessica frantically tried to shush him. "Uh… Dad, let me call you back in a few."

"Okay, no problem," his dad replied. 

Jonah closed his phone and looked quizzically at Jessica. "What's up? I was just about to tell Dad about us."

"I know, but wouldn't it be so much more fun if we just didn't tell him?"

"It would be fun, but would it be fair to him and Annie? I mean, Dad was just telling me that the big family dinner is at Annie's parents' house. It feels weird to just show up with an extra person to feed, even if that person is you, my girlfriend."

"Okay, compromise. Don't tell your dad, but tell Annie so that she can let her parents know. That way, we can still see the look on your dad's face when he picks us up from the airport, but I also won't be a burden on Annie's family or even Annie and your dad."

"Deal. Let me call Dad back, and then I'll call Annie on her work line before she's off for the day."

————

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Jonah started laughing immediately at his dad's reaction to seeing him waiting with Jessica outside the airport.

"Hey, Mr. B!" Jessica said grinning, "It's been a while!"

"It's good to see you too, Jessica. It's definitely a surprise, but I get the feeling that I'm the only one who didn't know about this," his dad said, staring suspiciously at Annie. Annie ducked behind Jonah and gave him a quick hug while playfully hiding from his dad. 

"To be fair, Jonah was about to tell you about me when you called him a couple weeks ago, but I just really wanted to see your face when I showed up with him."

"Yeah, she made a pretty convincing argument."

"But they didn't just want to show up to dinner at my parents without any warning," Annie added, "Which is the only reason why I found out Jessica was coming before you did."  
"So, surprise, Dad! Meet my girlfriend!" Jonah finished, pushing Jessica towards his dad.

His dad laughed and reached out to hug Jessica, "I really should have seen this coming, but I'm very happy to see you again, Jessica. And I'm happy for both of you," he added, as Jonah joined them for a hug as well.

————

"Where's Jessica?" Jonah shrugged as he sat down with his dad and Annie.

"Her mom called and asked her to come help with something, but Jessica's not sure what." They sat in silence for a moment, just enjoying the view from the houseboat they were staying in. "How does it feel to be back here?" Jonah asked.

"It still feels like home," his dad replied. "I love our home and our lives in Baltimore, but this still feels right in its own way."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Jonah fidgeted for a moment, trying to give himself the courage to speak up, but Annie spoke up first.

"What's on your mind, Jonah? You've been a million miles away since you got here."

"Is it that obvious?" Jonah asked, dismayed.

"It is to us, and probably would be to Jessica, too."

Jonah took a deep breath, let it out and turned to his dad, "So do you remember that when I was a kid, you once said, and I quote, 'I sincerely hope you are not going to marry Jessica'? Well, I want to propose to Jessica."

His dad grabbed him and pulled him into a big hug, "After all this time, I can't say I'm surprised to hear it, but I am so proud of you, kiddo."

Annie joined in the hug as well, and Jonah just quietly absorbed this moment with his parents in the city that had played such a big part in bringing them together as a family. "Think she'll say yes?" he asked them nervously. 

"I will never be able to predict her answers," his dad said. 

"But she will absolutely want to marry you, too," Annie finished. "After all, you two are M.F.E.O. just like your dad and me."

————

Jonah and Jessica spent the day together visiting some of their favorite places in Seattle, doing some of the things they'd loved as kids, and just enjoying themselves in general. But as the day went on, Jonah knew that this was his moment to ask his best friend, the love of his life, if she would marry him. "When Dad and I left to move to Baltimore, I was terrified. I wasn't scared to finally be living with Annie, or scared to be living in another city that was so different from Chicago and Seattle. I was afraid that I was going to lose you. You were my best friend, and the one person who understood me no matter what, and I was so scared that we wouldn't have that if we were so far away from one another.

"But somehow, we stayed in touch, through phone calls and letters, and then finally technology got on your level and we had emails and chat rooms, and we stayed best friends right up until college. And in college you became even more to me," Jonah paused and reached into his pocket for the ring he'd been carrying around since they came back to Seattle for the holidays. And smiling at the stunned look on her face, Jonah knelt down on one knee before her. "Jessica, I love you so much, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. W.Y.M.M?"

"O.C.I.W," Jessica replied dropping to her knees and pulling him into a kiss. "Of course I will," she repeated with a smile. 

"You couldn't just say yes?" Jonah said with a laugh, sliding the engagement ring on her finger. 

"I almost answered you with 'Y' but then this could have turned into a really weird moment. This just seemed right."

"I love you so much," Jonah said.

"I love you too," Jessica replied and leaned in to kiss her fiancé again.


End file.
